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VANCOUVER, British Columbia — To give landlubbers a glimpse of
life in the ocean abyss, French researcher Bruce Shillito has
designed a type of tank, which he calls the “abyss box,” that
keeps deep-sea life alive in an aquarium.

"Approximately 75 percent of the global ocean volume is below
1,000-meter depth," Shillito, from Pierre and Marie Curie
University in Paris, said here at the annual meeting of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science. "The deep
ocean is at least half of the biosphere, about half of the actual
space where you can
have life on Earth."

The abyss box needs to be extremely pressurized to mimic the
environment deeper than 6,500 feet (2,000 meters) in the oceans,
where the pressure is 200 times that at the surface. Most of
these creatures would die within hours of reaching the surface
without a pressurized tank.

It's the only high-pressure aquarium that has a portal for
viewing the life inside. The pressure on this small portal —
about a foot (30 centimeters) wide — is greater than the weight
of a jumbo jet.

The tank is specially designed to admit food from the outside and
keep these precious animals alive for the long term. It will be
used to display
deep-sea vent crabs and shrimp in an exhibit set to open at
Oceanopolis aquarium in Brest, France, April 6.

"We wanted the fauna to be readily accessible to the people who
are there to watch these animals," Shillito said. "It will allow
the public to see the beauty and fragility of deep-sea life."

It may soon be possible to have a deep-sea creature like the
hagfish or anglerfish on display, though the cost and logistics
currently make it very difficult. Even a small aquarium
containing less than 5 gallons (16 liters), like those being used
in the exhibition, weighs more than 1,300 pounds (600 kilograms).

The abyss box and other high-pressure tanks are useful in the lab
to allow scientists to study these mysterious creatures. "We
still know very little about the way deep-sea animals may respond
to changing conditions," Shillito said. "More investigations on
live animals are essential to test acclimation potential of these
species with respect to
environmental changes expected in deep waters."

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